[Lux Spoilers] Gifters in Lux

[Nerd3.14159265358979 he/him]

So...did Lux just change the way that gifters work? In previous books, gifters were unable to gift their powers to other epics, yet in Lux, each of the four other epics we meet on Lux have been gifted Lifeforce's healing, and used it to save their lives. (On that, is Lovestruck still alive? Or did years of constant starvation kill her, like it did others? Or did the transfer to Paige stop the rebound?) Anyway, this seems to break the rules previously set in place. I'm curious as to whether you all think that it's just a plot hole or plot convenience, it's an unexplained variation in epic powers from gifter to gifter, it's some change granted by the weird "demon" inside Lifeforce that seems to be something more than just the darkness, or something else. Thoughts? 

Edit: I just realized that this is my first post in exactly 3 years! Who woulda thunk?

Edited July 25, 2021 by Nerd3.14159265358979

[HSuperLee]

Yeah, I had a similar thought pretty early on in the book, and as it went on it became way more clear how much Lifeforce didn't follow the established rule. But at the same time, his power is really weird. I kept waiting for an explanation of the ravens getting regular injections of other people's blood in order to have lives they could send their injuries to, but they never seemed to need that, instead, he seemed to be able to act as a relay for them. This makes me wonder if he's maybe a different kind of gifter than the others. In many ways Prof and Conflux seem more like batteries, giving away the "energy" of their powers which others could then use for a while. My main reason for this analogy is that David makes comments in Firefight about needing to "recharge" his gifted shield power by having Prof give it to him again, whereas if he just got a weaker ability to create force fields then he should be able to regenerate his own as long as he had the power. The fact that Lifeforce didn't give a number of extra lives, but rather the ability to draw on his own supply, suggests that rather than acting like a power supply that could give others some charge he instead was able to create a connection to them that they could draw on for a constant supply of power. For this reason alone, we might be able to conclude that there are different kinds of gifters, and thus they might not all share the same limits. But as I said, Lifeforce's powers are weird.

Deathrise only complicates the matter, as its unclear how much of Lifeforce's powers were his own abilities, and how much was from Deathrise. Part of this mystery is the events around Lifeforce's first attempted suicide after being rejected by Lovestruck. When we first heard the story, I was wondering who was around to touch him and activate his power, since at that point he didn't have the strategy of injecting blood into himself. I have to wonder if Deathrise possessed him then, and somehow provided a burst of healing, saving him from the suicide, like how Page was saved from her raven wounds. But as I said, I'm not sure if the injury transfer was Lifeforce's own power, or if he was never an epic at all, and it was always Deathrise inside of him providing the power. One thing that will help make this clear is whether or not Page manifests the injury transfering, or if she develops her own abilities. The only reason I hold back from thinking that Lifeforce might have not been an epic at all is that he had an epic weakness. Otherwise I'd wonder if he was something different that came about through Deathrise. But that might be a discussion for another thread. My point just being here that Lifeforce was very much not a normal epic, and his ability to gift his powers to other epics is only one piece of that.

Edited July 25, 2021 by HSuperLee

[Nerd3.14159265358979 he/him]

That makes a lot of sense. I had similar thoughts, but couldn't flesh them out as much. It's been awhile since I read the original trilogy. I actually trimmed that post down a lot, because there are so many questions that Lifeforce and Deathrise give rise to. It feels like there's an explanation in there somewhere, and when it's revealed it will make a lot more sense. That was just the biggest piece of my question. Another big piece is that usually, when an epic gifts their powers, it helps to diminish their own darkness, which also doesn't seem to be the case for Lifeforce. Which could be because he lets himself get injured so frequently, or just be the way he let his own psyche change, or be from Deathrise. So many questions and possibilities...it makes me happy, and also confused. 

I also wondered if Deathrise came about from so many epic powers, and so much of the darkness, mingling together. Like, maybe they played off of each other and exacerbated the darkness into something stronger than the original, that couldn't be removed just by the departure of Calamity. 

[MGershone]

On 7/25/2021 at 0:45 AM, Nerd3.14159265358979 said:

Edit: I just realized that this is my first post in exactly 3 years! Who woulda thunk?

Not 3.14159265358979 years? (Sorry, couldn't resist) 

In terms of Deathrise in general, I think the reason Paige wakes up right after David defeats Calamity is because Deathrise was somehow dominated by Calamity - a sort of second, darker force that Calamity used to manifest the fears, which is why he's pictured as a dark demon by Lifeforce. In fact, I'm pretty sure the demon iconography has been used by other Epics in the first trilogy.

Lifeforce does seem to be a different kind of gifter. The idea of him being a conduit makes a lot of sense, because not only does he give his powers to others, he has no power with no one to take from. He essentially drains life from one person and passes it to someone else. In fact, maybe he;s not really a gifter in the traditional sense - he's not giving an ability to others, just being-ness. Or perhaps alive-itude. (What was the term again?)

 

[Tglassy]

I'm wondering if he "Gifts" his powers by injecting them with his blood, the same way he injects theirs into him.  Perhaps he not only can heal himself by giving others his injuries, but he can heal others by taking them.  So he takes the Raven's et al's injuries into himself, transferring them to all the people he has locked away.  And that's why he was able to give the injury back to whoever it was (been a while since I read it).

 

As for Deathrise...honestly, my first thought is that it is an Epic.  it was a person who's power was to possess people.  Perhaps the ability to heal was his, instead of Lifeforce's?  But maybe not.  Either way, I feel like Deathrise is just another Epic, one who's body died, and s/he is just body hopping at this point.